


Gotham's Best

by 2SpaceGays



Category: Batman (Comics), Batwoman (Comic), DCU (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7064848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2SpaceGays/pseuds/2SpaceGays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can Kate and Maggie pick up the pieces of their relationship and return to where they left off? Set following Batwoman (2015) Annual 2. Kate's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotham's Best

I wander into the old apartment, with its peeling paint and concrete view. Maggie moved back here, despite my offer to pay my part of the rent on the place we’d gotten together. I should have known Maggie wouldn’t take it. But she’d left a forwarding address, and it had just been a matter of following it.

I sit on the edge of the worn old sofa, back to Maggie and the kitchen. She’s gone back to the coffee pot, and I have to keep myself from commenting on how late it is, and how little sleep she’s likely to get. She still hasn’t said a word.

Her expression when she met me at the door had been guarded, the wave of her hand as she motioned me in, resigned. She’s willing to listen to what I have to say, but I shouldn’t expect anything more.

I can’t keep my gaze from drifting. There’s an open pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, one orange butt poking out. Only one pack, though. Maybe only a few sticks a day, maybe only at work. I don't think Maggie would let herself backslide any further, not with Jamie around again.

It’s a hopeful thought.

The lighter beside the pack is nondescript, there’s no ashtray or stench of tobacco. But there is a single chair pulled up to the window, a chipped bowl on its seat. She blows the smoke out into Gotham.

There’s a game cartridge on the coffee table, too, one with a colourful sticker, so I know Jamie has been here. And I’m reminded of why I shouldn’t be.

But my need for Maggie assuages my guilt.

Finally, she joins me, lowering herself into the armchair opposite the sofa. Still not speaking, the GCPD mug shielding her from me. Or me from her.

Over its brim, she meets my eyes expectantly.

I have to talk first.

I know what I should say, but it’s not what comes out.

“Where are you going?” I nod at the single suitcase by the door. It’s not big enough for all her things, so wherever she’s going, it isn’t for long. Something with Jamie? A conference for work? Or something else? Some _one_ else?

She stares at me in a way that tells me she doesn’t want to answer. But she does anyway, “Star City. Funeral.”

My mouth hangs open. Super attractive.

Maggie takes a drink of coffee that I know burns her tongue. She doesn’t even wince.

I flounder and say the wrong thing again, “Who is it?”

Another cop, is what I’m expecting. Someone from her past. It’s Star City, so Jay will be there, with all his cop buddies. It won’t be a good trip for her. Explains the bags under her eyes, and the tension in her shoulders. I know if she let me rub them for her they’d feel like rocks.

It’s an age before she answers. She lowers the mug into her lap and her gaze locks on my face. She’s gauging my reaction. I know it’s worse than another cop before the words leave her lips, “My mother.”

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

I don’t know what my face looks like, but Maggie doesn’t look away.

“I’m so sorry, Mags.” What else is there to say? Nothing can make this better, I know.

I am the queen of awful timing.

Maggie doesn’t say anything, so I keep going, “Is your family going to be there?” The family that disowned her when she got divorced and came out. It’s not really a question, and the way Maggie bows her head to drink again is confirmation enough, “Do you need someone to go with you?”

I can hear my voice quaver and mentally kick myself – this isn’t my pain. I’m only making things worse now. But I can’t _not_ offer. I _can’t_ let her go alone if she needs me – even if it isn’t exactly _me_ that she needs.

“I’m fine, Kate.” She’s not. How could she be?

I wonder if Bette would be able to get me the venue. I could go anyway, just in case...

“I’m not that pathetic.”

The words, sharp as knives, startle me. It's like I've been slapped. They sting exactly as much as Maggie means them to.

I wish she would scream at me.

I’d rather be stabbed in the heart. Again.

I’d rather die. Again.

It’s no less than I deserve.

The apology I’d rehearsed in my head dies on my lips.

“Maggie...”

Her eyes are hard and I know she doesn’t want to hear it. But I’m going to say it anyway.

“I can explain. Nocturna...” Her blue eyes narrow at the name. I hate myself. “She’s a vampire. Not the sucks-the-life-out-of-old-man kind. _Well_ , that too, probably. But... an _actual_ vampire, Mags. She... She hypnotises people. She hypnotised me. I thought she...”

I thought she loved me. I can’t bring myself to say it. Maggie doesn’t want to hear it.

“I’m sorry. For _everything_.” Don’t cry, Kate Kane. Don’t cry. “For what I said to you, for what I called you, for everything I did. I’m _so_ sorry, Maggie.”

 _Annnd_ I’m crying.

Maggie sits back in the armchair and sets her coffee aside. She’ll forget about it and it’ll go cold. Like it always does.

I think she’s going to get up and wrap her arms around me, comfort me like she did that first night. But she doesn’t. Her walls are up. She’s over the Kate Kane pity party. She’s over _me._

I can’t blame her.

I hang my head and wait for her to kick me out. Again.

She doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t _want_ to believe me. If she does, she has to stop being angry. And she _needs_ to be angry with me.

But she’s worked around metas too long to not believe in vampires.

I dare to glance up at her. Her face has softened. There’s sympathy in her eyes.

If I was half as strong as Maggie Sawyer, I would never have fallen for Nocturna.

“Are you okay?” She asks as if it matters. I’m drowning in guilt.

What would she do if I told the truth, if I told her how far from okay I really am?

Teeth bite into my lip. The physical pain is easier to bear, “I’m getting there. That’s why I came, I...”

I falter. I want her back. That’s why I came. I want her shoulders under my hands after a long day at work. I want her body waiting for me under the sheets when I come home from patrol. I want to go to her mother’s funeral with her and hold her hand in mine.

I need her to make me better.

But Mags deserves better than Kate Kane. She always has.

“I wanted to apologise.”

I want her forgiveness more than anything. But she hears what I don’t say.

“You left me before Nocturna.”

I swallow down the hard lump in my throat and glance at the game cartridge on the table. The cigarettes. 

Maggie’s mother had cancer.

I force myself to meet her knowing stare and hold it. Maggie looks away first, for once. There is pain on her face, lines of exhaustion. I would give anything to hold her.

“I couldn’t let you lose Jamie again.” I have to make her understand.

She already does, more than I meant her to, “I know you made a deal with Jay. You leave and he drops the custody battle.”

She looks more miserable than angry. Is that a good sign or a bad?

“How did you—“

“Detective, remember?” Is she smiling? It’s strained and small, but I think it’s there. She’s remembering Central.

I try to smile back for her, “Gotham’s best.”

I leave not knowing where we stand. I don’t ask Bette about the funeral. I buy a card and slip it under Maggie’s door. I slip a packet of nicotine gum under it the next day, leave a second with Vince to put on her desk. I buy instant decaf coffee knowing she’ll hate me for the ‘instant’ part, but unable to fit anything bigger under her door. I write my number on a scrap of paper and add it to the growing pile. I find out from Stacy when she’ll be back at work. I order flowers scheduled to appear that same day. I make a reservation for thirty-dollar mystery meat for that Saturday and make sure all the bugs are scraped from my shoes.

When I see Maggie, she has spearmint on her breath instead of tobacco. And she tastes like coffee.


End file.
